Studio Series: Antony Gormley

Fancy having a peep inside Antony Gormley’s studio? Pete Goodbody gets a tour from the artist himself, discovering brutalist sculpture and secret celebrations for the 10th annversary of Another Place…

Tucked away on a side street around Kings Cross, London, and behind a large steel gate, is Antony Gormley’s studio. The Angel of the North artist’s studio is, dare we say it, the kind of studio you might expect Carlsberg to build, if they built studios.

Here is a series of bright, connected warehouse spaces and store rooms that feature high ceilings, with a system of ropes and pulleys from which various sculptures, old and new, are hanging. On the floor lie more pieces of work; some finished, some work in progress, and some that are very experimental.

Last week, I was lucky enough to be part of a group given a short tour around the studio by the man himself. This is the sculptor responsible for many, many critically-acclaimed works: for the beached, eerie iron men of Another Place (Merseyside), the disorientating and claustrophobic Blind Light exhibition (Hayward Gallery) and subsequent rooftop figures of Event Horizon (2007). Gormley has created sculptures and installations for public spaces and galleries all over the world from this very warehouse.

In one corner, Antony showed us some wire frame sculptures he had been working on. Based on his own body as much of his work is, they were a stripped down, simplified, geometric representation of the human form. He doesn’t need to do castings of his body anymore — he uses digital mapping now — but the basic premise hasn’t changed.

In another room, the body was represented again, this time by solid blocks of metal assembled together to show someone standing or stooping or crouching. These pieces were made up of square or rectangular blocks; perhaps they were a nod towards the infamous Malevich black square, wondered Antony out loud. They certainly have a brutal feel about them.

We also saw work made from polyhedrons, assembled from components cast in Poland. Antony explained how precise the fit needs to be and the difficulty with finding a foundry that can produce pieces to the required, very fine, tolerances. The shapes created this way do appear to be abstract at first look, but there is a great deal of thought and deconstruction going on before assembly can begin. This is sculpture on a grand scale, and it was a privilege to be allowed a glimpse of the process.

Next year, it will be the 10th anniversary of Another Place arriving at Crosby; installed deep into the sand and staring out to sea. Maybe something special will happen to celebrate. Who knows? Well, actually I do, but I’m not saying.

Pete Goodbody

More on Antony Gormley’s extensive body of work here

All images Antony Gormley’s studio, 2014, courtesy Pete Goodbody (@p3dro)